camera

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun equipment for taking photographs (usually consisting of a lightproof box with a lens at one end and light-sensitive film at the other)
  2. noun television equipment consisting of a lens system that focuses an image on a photosensitive mosaic that is scanned by an electron beam

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin camera (“chamber or bedchamber”), from Ancient Greek καμάρα (kamára, “anything with an arched cover, a covered carriage or boat, a vaulted chamber, a vault”), of Old Iranian origin, from Proto-Iranian *kamarā- (“something curved”), from *kamárati, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *kmárati, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂em- (“to bend, curve”). Doublet of chamber. (device): An ellipsis of camera obscura, from New Latin camera obscura (“dark chamber”), because the first cameras used a pinhole and a dark room.

In classic literature

Synonyms

photographic camera

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